Local Fare at the Library!

massive load of pictures!!! 

kolo mee, aka wantan mee, aka char siew mee, aka roasted pork noodles with dumplings.

fishball and minced meat with flat noodles (supposed to be dry type but i overdid the resin XD )

fishball kway teow soup

this tiny thing makes me feel a little bit of rage, wasted 2 days trying to make the darned red/green chillis. and in person, it just looks like a black mess, but not so bad in pics....gah. please excuse the blu-tack 

one of my fave breakfast items...chwee kueh, which is preserved radish on steamed rice flour cakes (?) mmm oily goodness! 

for my non-singaporean readers, these food items might not seem familiar to you, i hope they are immediately recognizable to my regional readers though!! the chee cheong fun, or steamed rice rolls in sweet sauce is another fave of mine. 

they are wound up a little too tightly though, just like me XD the real stuff lies a lot flatter.....

 and of course, deep fried dough fritters, or you tiao aka yew char kueh!  with beh huay jee (butterfly fry??) which is dough with sugar and sesame seed topping, deep fried to chewy yumminess. i love eating these, but i recall as a kid being rather terrible and tearing off just the sugary bits.

ok if i were to eat them now, i would do the same, only with more guilt XD

dipping these into a hot cuppa milo and letting it soak up the hot chocolatey drink...before attempting to manoeuvre the long floppy dough stick into my mouth without creating a big mess. THAT was a challenge. when you are 6, of course.

or have it with porridge!

i never tried sliced mushroom porridge, i would imagine it would be nice? or maybe it'll look nicer than it tastes....

if it were plain porridge, a bit of pickled veges would add ZING!

 i made all of these the past month because i realized i had not been focusing on any local fare since i started making minis. so why not now, eh? ^ ^  they are made mostly with air dry clay and epoxy resin, and given my limited experiences with ADC i'm glad they turned out reasonably well (barring some colour issues, curse those greens and reds! XD )

see all of these next week (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! omg....i'm not prepared!) and more....at the library! i had been invited a few months back when they 'found' me via theminifoodblog and asked if i would like to talk about miniatures :O  i will talk about ....gee basically whatever i usually discuss here in this blog, as well as some business aspects, but that to me is the *yawn* boring stuff :P

http://golibrary.nlb.gov.sg/Event.aspx?EventID=34992

Date/Time:	Saturday Nov 6, 2:00PM - Saturday Nov 6, 4:00PM
Venue:	Activity Room in Sengkang Public Library

see you there!

1:12 chinese noodles, and an important announcement! ^ ^

alas. they are somewhat of a failure T-T but i learnt alot in making these!

this dish is supposed to be "Hor Fun", i don't know what it translates into cos i don't speak cantonese nor understand much of it. it's a one dish meal found in almost every coffee shop that has a 'zi char' stall, something like a mini restaurant kitchen (?) anyway, it's flat rice noodles cut into large square pieces, sauteed and served with a gooey starchy gravy with prawns, pork slices, leafy veges and sometimes fish cake + squid rings. my version has only the prawns, lean pork slices and veges cos those are my fave ingredients to go with it XD

i consider this a failure because i messed up on the noodles bit :( i used a grace + daiso white lightweight clay, i forget the ratio but i know i added more grace cos i wanted the translucency, thing is, i wasn't sure if the daiso clay would absorb the resin even after it's dry. well, now i know :( if not for the 'charred' bits of the noodles, i think it's hard to even see the noodles!

since i had leftover resin, i made an additional portion in a smaller bowl. i suppose if i used my imagination i can almost see the noodles XD

i don't suppose anyone could identify this, T-T it's another version of flat rice noodles, this time it's in thinner strips. the dish name is "ipoh hor fun", which is rice noodles with braised mushroom, shredded chicken and vegetables. but again, the dried clay soaked up the resin, thus discolouring it. i suppose if i wanted to make it more realistic, i wouldn't care, but it's hard to tell from the congealed mess what it is!!! gahhh! also, the mushrooms are supposed to be whole mushrooms, but i didn't feel like making them today and used leftovers from my prep for my 'non-fail, not-yet-presented' items for an upcoming occasion...yes i'm coming to that soon....

i placed some 'shredded chicken' on the almost-cured resin. see?!?! this is what it looked like before it soaked up the 'gravy' :(

ah well! lesson learnt! it was fun making all these items, so fast, and so easy on my hands too! i like working with ADC, now that i am getting the hang of it. furthermore i think it is a far better medium to work with when making chinese foods as the nature of the clay makes it easier for me to get the textures required than having to work on getting them in if i were to make these out of polymer clay. i'll try with PC another time, when i'm feeling brave.......

anyway. to add on to the random items i made in my previous post, here's the prawns that i tried to make....took me only all last night to get the prawn shapes right, then all morning + afternoon today to get the colours right......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz i didn't have orange marker, and didn't want to fiddle about with paints more than necessary, so i used a yellow base, and painted a dark pink on top of it. luckily it worked out rather well. gave it a final touch of tamiya transparent orange, i think it quite passable as prawns!!! again, since it's not meant to be a stand alone item, i wasn't too concerned as i knew they will be covered up with sauce......

i think i've also mentioned countless times my weakness at mixing greens. 3 attempts, and they still look sick XD the white stuff is too translucent for beansprouts sigh.....try, try again...........

the noodles i made for the hor fun dishes were individually cut from a thinly flattened piece of dried clay. but i needed to make a different sort of noodles, and i really did not fancy rolling them out. for one, it would mean they would definitely be uneven, and although i have a clay extruder that claims to be able to extrude clay strands down to 0.6mm wide, my earlier experience with it tells me otherwise. it's definitely larger than 0.6mm  wide, and i would need to mix up quite a bit of clay to get just a teeny bit extruded. so i went back to basics, and piped out the noodles.

Sans guessed right ;) it's meant for char siew noodles, but my first attempt at piping the noodles out didn't turn out so well. firstly, although the colour is a tad too light, i wasn't too fazed by it because again, there's a sauce to drench it in. however the thickness AIEE!!! it looked like spaghetti next to the char siew!! so back i went to piping yet another batch.....

i think the difference is noticeable ^ ^ on hindsight, maybe i should have saved myself the trouble and simply used thread or summat -_-" am gonna let them dry before i assemble the char siew noodles, also have to make some wantans.....

as to the little thing i've been mentioning, oh, only 3-4 times so far...HAHAH! anyway! i've been invited to talk about minis at a public venue, and the details are somewhat finalized, but since they aren't officially announced yet, i didn't want to mention specifics! but i've signed stuff and i think it's confirmed, so for those who haven't yet met me and are keen on seeing what kind of weirdo i am in person, here's your chance! :X it should be on November 6th, a saturday afternoon....i'll update with details, and items i'll be taking with me, and a little about what i'll be talking about in another post :) i won't be selling anything there, but at least now you know why i've been working so hard on making more local fare!!! gee...2 more weeks and i haven't even finalized the pics and the script :X :X :X but i'm not worried, i am only too happy to listen to the sound of my own droning voice............................................OK NO I"M PANICKING NOW AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE *crazy eyes*

My love for Re-ment

bf got me a belated anniversary gift!!! yea yea it only took me 1.5 weeks to get round to taking pics...and the anniversary was in july...the both of us aren't too fussy with anniversary stuff, we celebrate weekly! :P have i grossed you out yet??? :P :P :P

and you know what......IT CAME WITH A SECRET SET :O :O :O

it took me a while to say 'yes' to the "Home Centre" set. i felt a little silly and bad that my cravings for re-ment were so strong, but i'm glad i didn't (couldn't?) resist this collection. good thing i didn't (??) cos when i decided that i was going to take photos of my fave items today, i searched for the pet carrier and went into a near-panic state when i couldn't find it. i thought, 'HEY OMG DID I TOSS IT OUT WITH THE GARBAGE?" i really shouldn't place my bin next to my caddy (on top of which i do my photoshoots). ANYHOO. after a search, i checked back in the box and realised, hey. this doesn't look right. pet carrier is set #8, this is..*flips little brochure* set #11? *insert seriously puzzled face here*

of course it wouldn't occur to me that i'd get a secret set. these are much coveted by the re-ment collector, some going for almost 10-20 times the sticker price on greedbay. me, i like the colour pencil set best. which i think is like, the ultimate fave or summat judging by the responses to the pics on flickr.

i think i'm super lucky this time cos i believe the 'homu sentaa' set is a discontinued one (says on the box "2006"). i am mighty pleased, with a tinge of disappointment cos i really love that pet carrier and it was partly why i wanted the whole set. a quick check on greedbay put it a almost half of what bf paid for the complete collection. ah well! *throws hands up in air*

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/start of flashback

years ago, way before i started making my own minis, bf got me a re-ment house. it's stackable, and i did say i wanted to get a whole condo to house my modest re-ment collection. i say modest, because compared to some of the re-ment collectors who contribute frequently to the various re-ment flickr groups, what i own is laughable!  

to date, i must have collected at least 4-5 whole sets, and various individual boxes. i don't like to try my luck with the unmarked boxes, and bf is of no help at all *grins*, he reasons (and rightly so) that i can always sell off the sets i don't like/want. but...once i get a complete set, i don't want them to be separated wahh!!! XD


/end of flashback
=============================================

i didn't open up all the packets cos i wasn't ready to display them yet. the re-ment house looks like Godzilla (i.e. me) picked it up and gave it a good shake. it's sitting above my laptop on my table shelving area, holding some of my minis-that-i-haven't-found-a-place-to-store-in. coincidentally or subconsciously, i opened up the garden items, maybe cos next on my to-do list is flowers???

look at how innocent this wee bike sits on my table. this...THIS is the one that made me go NnnnnGHHH!!! WANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yotsuba loves it to bits, maybe even a bit more than the little red wagon....

 i placed an older red wagon i got from Talina at a steal (thanks Talina!) and surprise surprise, it's slightly smaller than a 1:12 wagon! i'd read that the older re-ment stuff was smaller, some even closer to 1:12 (re-ment these days is mostly 1:6) but i suppose this could just be a mini red wagon. doesn't bother me, I LUVS IT.

and that translucent green bucket OMG HAHAHAHAHHA!! i'm smiling to myself as i type this. my fascination with little red wagons stem from an inside joke between me and bf....let's just say, on my more painful days, it can be hard getting me to move around without massive whining and protestations. :X 'nuff said! :P

I WANT MORE RE-MENT GAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *ROARS*

so, what's cooking?

so....i messed around with air dry clay today. Grace resin clay and sukerukun, depending on what i needed to achieve. Sukerukun is more translucent than Grace, so i used it for the above 'century egg'. i know i messed up the yolk bit, it's supposed to be a tad greyer or greener? but i figure, hey, it's not gonna be a stand alone item...so i don't care :X 'sides, i also messed up on the 'white' (black? ha!) bits of the egg, not translucent enough. but we'll see after it's fully dried.

this dastardly thing is deceptively difficult to achieve realistically. it's supposed to be char siew, or roast pork. kinda hard to capture the texture with the camera...and definitely needs more tweaking. but again, it's not gonna be a stand alone item anyway....

julienned ginger!!! i -think- this is sukerukun. i forgets :( i love love how the colour turned out, IIRC i think i mixed yellow + ochre oil paints.

i think i lucked out on the colour for the pork. i started off making minced pork, realised i had too much paint mixed, so used the remainder to make larger pork pieces and slices. i really like the texture on the slices!!! CHO HEYPI!

and, my fave of the lot, the shredded chicken! the wonderful thing about ADC is that i don't really have to muck about and be too precise since it provides different textures at different stages of drying, this i believe is pure grace + a smidge of leftover 'pork' colour. using my craft knife, i just 'tear' teeny weeny pieces of clay and 'shred' it up, JUSLYKCHIKEN!!!! LOL? XD srsly, i am so happy i took time to use up the remainder of my ADC before it totally gives up on me.

forgot to take close up pics of the mushroom. i didn't bother making individual mushrooms, cos these are meant to be ingredients in a dish, or a few dishes? CAN YOU GUESS WHAT I'M MAKING? bwa ha ha! ;) i took a flame to the grace and blistered it on one side, and then further coloured it brown with water-based ink pen i got from Daiso. what a stink it made though! and thinner parts of it also caught on fire :X there's a funky stench in my room now, good thing i had the following yummy treat BEFORE i started all the above 'experimentation' :D i learnt the burning trick from littlecatwhitewhite's fantastic tutorial site, the link is in one of the lists to the right of my blog, but i don't know if the actual tutorial where i picked up the idea from is still there??




youngest bro popped into my room earlier today with this omnommy treat! cream puff from beard papa, papa beard, gah i always mix it up, and i'm in a mad rush to go out, am kinda late meeting bf. i snuck one of my older ADC swan puffs onto the treat just for fun, kekeke! i know, that's kinda gross, but....i am kinda gross! XD

my neck/shoulder muscles are still knotted up like crazy, but i'm also popping painkillers like crazy, probably explains why i feel so..so....i give up i gotta go BYE!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Halloween!!!!

the results are out, i came in 3rd!! WOOT! thanks to all who voted for me! ^ ^

i really enjoyed making the items for this contest, i have never made such elaborate canes (do strawberry canes count??) and had so much fun i now have lots of leftovers, i suppose i could put them up for sale but don't think the parcels will make it in time for halloween eh???? really enjoyed making the cookies too, not that they're very noticeable....hrm. OH! and the candles came about cos i had lots of waste clay from caning and such, and felt the display needed a bit more fillers. i seriously need to build more display units, these are getting a tad overused XD

it's hard to take better pics of the teeny candies, which range from 1.5-2mm. and the candy corn are approx 1.5mm long,...my fave is of course the pumpkin witch! had to actually name the entry, i couldn't think of one so i just submitted it as (don't groan!!!) "Punkin' Pumpkin!" XD XD XD as to the HUGE pumpkin thingies in the back/foreground, i had actually tried to smoosh up the 'waste' clay from the cane, and they emerged from the pasta machine all cute and i couldn't bear to turn them into a gunky blob, so now they're acting as bookmarks :D :D :D

click for larger view :) or you could view the winning entries at http://www.cdhmcontests.com/ ! i would have voted for either Rosie Vargas' or Lisa Bounds' entries, but i couldn't decide, and by the time i remembered that i'd forgotten to vote the voting had closed!!! *slaps own forehead*

3-tiered cakes

not much to update. shoulder and hand acting up again, been popping painkillers on and off the last week + and it's still not fully healed up. but i did manage to slowly assemble the different components of this cake....it's almost done, just need confirmation from my customer before i give it a matte sealant. it's made out of polymer clay, but i still feel that due to the tiny tiny details, i would feel more comfy if it had a layer of protective sealant.

customer provided inspiration from here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cakejournal/2839763160/

voting for the halloween contest over on cdhm is over, stupid me all groggy from pain meds forgot to vote!! -_-" d'oh! XD i don't know if i can show pics yet, but i guess you all have figured out which entry was mine?? :P

....urr urr *zombie noises*

edit: forgot to provide the inspiration photo! the original cakemaker does lovely lovely work!!! also, i came in 3rd for the cdhm contest WOOT WOOT!! XD see my entry here:

http://www.cdhmcontests.com/

1:12 heart candies

special request from a customer. originally made them a while back in the form of cookies, but i think i like the candy version better ^ ^ will need to make them smaller though.....as if these weren't challenging enough XD

and it wouldn't be a 'snowfern clover' thing if i didn't take a challenge a step further, if only to challenge myself, right? ;) just need sharpen the cutting edge (waiting for the dremel chuck to arrive, yea i haven't even broken it in yet T-T NO TIME!) and to hot glue the end of the cutter, but that involves digging into drawers and looking for a spare socket....so....let's hope i don't lose the cutter meanwhile :P these hearts are barely 2mm at the widest point.

made a few extras and 2 extra colours. i can't work on the remaining candy bases i prepared, muscles are all bunched up from hunching over these! the accent beads are approx 0.3-0.5mm (YEAH :O ) wide, so ....they sure took a bit of fiddling about to place them onto the clay.

TIME TO STRETCH OUT THOSE MUSCLES. please don't rain, it's been a while since i hit the pool :O